Dream By The Fire Babe
by Threepwillow
Summary: Kurt lives for Black Friday, but this time around he has a hard time waking up and an even harder time making it through the end of the day when the star of his dreams is right in front of him in glasses and a Santa hat. ::Oneshot, Blaine/Kurt, BICO::


He cranes back into the plush of his mattress, every nerve in his body scrunching up in a shiver of hammered-thin lust, which any second now is going to tear and break, break _him_. His hands spasm tense into the coarse, dark hair beneath them, and if it hurts, if it at all bothers or detracts from the experience of the glorious man buried between his thighs, there's no reaction apart from a low amused hum around his cock and _redoubled efforts_, lush hot mouth sucking soft and oppressive around him, the head of his cock butting over-sensitive and mothereffing _hot_ at the back of his throat. The hand around his hip, firm and guitar-rough and flawless, drags hard around over his white-hot skin and back to _there_, one finger swirling around and around and then _in_ and he cannot _take_ this any more –

And that, among many other reasons, is why Kurt swears violently at his alarm clock when it shocks him awake at the completely unreasonable hour of five o'clock in the morning.

_It's Black Friday,_ he reminds himself as he groans and rolls over into his comforter and shuts his phone up. _You __**live**__ for this day._ And he does. He lives for honking at Mercedes's house ungodly early, packing a lunch full of Thanksgiving leftovers, and streaking through line after line in store after store for the best deals around. He plans everything, from the exact order of his shopping (based on proximity and weight of potential purchases) to his outfit (maximized mobility, _comfortable shoes!_). But what Kurt hasn't ever planned for, in all his past Thanksgivings and Black Fridays – what Kurt has never _had_ to plan for – is the wash of deep, heady dreams he's been having since he sort of got a handle on this whole _being out of the closet_ thing and started allowing himself to really _notice_ what he likes about boys. And what he _wants_.

And if lately, you know, for the past month or so, the other presence in the dreams has gotten awfully specific, so what, and if that specificity started right around the night that Kurt went out to see a particular production of Rent, well, that's just a coincidence.

He drags himself out of the covers, strips down, and ducks into the bathroom for a cool, cool shower. To wake himself up. But to make sure he doesn't wake up _too_ much.

By five forty-five he's dressed, styled and out the door, and by six-fifteen he's mostly awake and waiting on Mercedes.

"Get in, loser, we're going shopping!"

She stumbles into his car still looking partially asleep, snuggles down into the heated passenger seat, and then they're off. First stop: Circuit City. Finn and Carole's old cell plan is running out and Kurt and his dad have found some really nice phones they can fold into their own. Kurt just has to go and pick them up, and he wants to get there before the mad rush. The mad rush is only fun at the mall.

"Please tell me your dad made your grandma's corn pudding – "

"Yes."

" – and that it's as good as last year – "

"Better!"

" – and that you packed some of it for lunch," says Mercedes, sentence punctuated with a yawn. "Because that is legit the only thing sustaining me right now."

"Consider yourself sustained," says Kurt with a laugh. "Tunes?"

"As long as it's not Christmas songs," she says. "We're gonna hear enough of them as it is in the stores and stuff." Kurt agrees – most holiday songs have _just_ enough of a religious bent to get under his skin in the bad way – so he flicks through a couple of stations looking for generic, Santa-free pop.

"Oooh, Katy Perry!" says Mercedes. "Stop, stop, I like this one."

Kurt's palm grows a bit sweatier around his steering wheel. "Ah, _no_," he says, changing the channel just a flicker too slowly. "I think any song with repeated usage of the word _dream_ is just going to tempt me back to sleep at this point."

"Which is code for 'I'm still trying to pretend I don't have a crush on Blaine Garrity and I don't wanna listen to this song ever again because it's awkward,'" says Mercedes with a laugh. She certainly sounds a _lot_ more awake all of the sudden, and Kurt scowls into his rearview mirror. "I get it, it's cool."

"I have half a mind to leave it on the next country Christmas station I hit just for that."

"You wouldn't dare."

"_Wouldn't I?_"

But he doesn't, and eventually hits on a classicky station that's playing good Madonna and Pat Benatar by the time they're pulling into the Circuit City parking lot.

Black Friday has officially begun.

-xxx-

"This is so not fair," Kurt groans as they root through the back-of-the-store clearance section of the Hot Topic at the mall, three stores and one round of Starbucks later.

"No," says Mercedes, "what's not fair is Mr. Schue making me put _your_ name back for the Secret Santa because he said you and I are too close already. I drew Tina on my _second_ try." She holds up a pair of purple mesh gloves in contemplation. "It's not my fault that there's basically a whole Tina store."

"Whatever, Sam is going to take this Last Airbender poster and he is going to like it," Kurt says with a sigh, shifting his arm and the bags on it a little. "If he already has it then that's even better. I still say you should have let me get him that nice bottle of shampoo for color-treated hair at the salon."

"We have a twenty dollar gift limit, Kurt," says Mercedes, rolling her eyes. She decides on the neon pink mesh gloves instead and they squeeze through the overcramped store to the register, anxious to get out of the claustrophobic goth-land with its screamy overhead music as quickly as possible.

"Is it pretzel time?" asks Mercedes, heaving her purse back onto her shoulder. "Please say yes."

"No!" says Kurt. "That was the whole point of packing lunch, so we don't waste our valuable shopping money on overpriced mall food."

"But I can _smeelllll themmmmm_," she whines.

"Corn puddiiiinnng."

"Oh yeah! Hook me up, boy."

They sequester themselves down into a cushy seating area by the fountains and Kurt breaks out the tupperwares from his satchel, and together they try to make sure their turkey sandwiches don't fall apart, and pass back and forth Kurt's single thermos of cold (but still delicious) apple cider. For the rest of it they need to steal plastic utensils from the Dippin Dots, so Kurt leaves Mercedes behind with all their stuff while he presses through the crowds to get some, and it's when he's standing there, wedged between a couple of giggly middle-school girls and a dad with a tiny screaming daughter, that he hears it.

Surely it can't be.

Floating toward him over the rush from the direction of the toy store is a clear, sweet melody, not canned holiday tunes from an overhead speaker system but a real singing voice. An unsettlingly _familiar_ singing voice. Sure enough, when Kurt turns to look, the place has a thickening crowd around it, and not the regular holiday-press kind but the circular, something-is-happening-here kind. Deciding Mercedes can wait for a minute, Kurt worms his way past people and bags and coats until he can get close enough to crane up over somebody's shoulder and see. And there they are in the toy shop storefront: The Dalton Academy Warblers, down to about half their numbers but still sounding as harmoniously tight as ever, with Blaine on lead and Jamie doing some silly quirky background thing in a playful, jazzy, _hypnotic_ version of Winter Wonderland. They're all wearing their red Dalton sweaters and Santa hats, and underneath the fringe of white fluff across his forehead Blaine is wearing his glasses.

Well, that's it for Kurt, then. The Warblers already kind of take away his ability to breathe and contacts-less Blaine (who finds him in the crowd almost immediately, even before the song is over, around _face unafraid all the plans that we made_ like he has some kind of sixth freaking sense) is enough to take away his ability to do pretty much anything else. As the song winds down and the crowd applauds politely, several of them milling away in the downtime, Kurt stands rooted to the spot.

Unfortunately, this makes it fairly easy for Blaine to make a beeline straight for him when the song is over. "Kurt!" he calls, eyes bright and shining behind his wire frames. "So cool to see you here, man. Getting some shopping in I take it?"

"N - naturally," Kurt fumbles out, trying desperately not to remember that this is the man who not eight hours ago he was dreaming of getting a blowjob from. Oh. _Whoops._

"Nice," says Blaine.

Kurt shakes himself mentally a little; he needs to at least get his thoughts clear enough to carry on a conversation. "Why are you – what are you doing here?"

"Oh, this," says Blaine, gesturing vaguely to the rest of the Warblers, hovering around a pitch-pipe and occasionally shooting him weird, intrigued looks. "We do this every year. Kyle's dad is a partner in this toy company and they get us to come sing at their local stores on the big holiday shopping days as a sort of publicity thing. It's cool performance-wise but it's a little bit annoying since we can't get paid for it or we – "

"Can't compete," says Kurt, insanely grateful for a talking point. "Yeah, New Directions ran into that snag once too. It almost lost us Mr. Schuester."

"Bummer. Good to see it got sorted out then."

"Yeah."

There's this deep, awkward lull in their conversation. The crowd swirls and bustles around them, but Kurt is basically oblivious to the presence of anything other than Blaine, who can be wearing a bland sweater and a freaking _Santa hat_ and still look mindblowingly good, especially in the strange gold-tinted light of the mall at Christmas. He's looking up at Kurt with this funny little smile on his face, hands loose and casually sexy in his pockets, and for a tiny hopeful split-second Kurt imagines he sees something in Blaine's hazel-brown eyes that maybe just _maybe_ could indicate that he's feeling the same. That everything else is just whirling past insignificantly when they're locked together like this, standing slightly closer than social norms indicate in the throng of shoppers, blinking dumbly at each other and kind of not breathing.

"Blaine!" shouts Wes from over where the Warblers are congregating. "Come on, dude!"

Their moment breaks and the noise rushes back in. "Gotta go," Blaine says, and not even Kurt's wishful thinking could fake the reluctance in his voice. It's real. He doesn't want to leave. But he turns to go anyway...and then stops.

"Sing with me."

"W-what?"

"Sing with _us_," Blaine corrects himself, fidgeting a little, pushing his glasses back into position a little on the bridge of his nose. "I mean – okay, there's this duet I've been wanting to do forever – but it kind of needs a girl – but I don't want to sing it with a girl, duh – but there is also no way in hell I'm singing it with Jordan and he's our only strong countertenor and anyway he couldn't even make it out here today." He's babbling, which he does sometimes, which is adorable. "And like. You're really good." His gaze drops a little (possibly to Kurt's _mouth_) and his voice does too. "_Really_ good. So sing with me. Us. Please?" There's this thick, beautiful strain of hope on Blaine's face, and he's holding out his hand to Kurt like he's freaking Aladdin asking Jasmine to step up onto his magic carpet and _trust him_.

And Kurt realizes, in that split second, that Blaine pretty much didn't even have to ask. Because Kurt will probably do anything for him, because Kurt does trust him. He's trusted him since he first met him, which is more than he can say for just about anyone, and it's that trust that evolved into his crush, and it's that crush that evolved into the state Kurt was in this morning, or that night after Rent, or that he is quickly approaching _now_, with all the piercing smoldering intensity of Blaine's gaze still trained on him. Kurt wasn't imagining the emotion hovering in that gaze, he realizes. It's been there. For a _while_. And the longer Kurt stands there without answering, the more he starts to think that it's been evolving there just the same.

He takes Blaine's coarse, hot hand in the middle of the mall and allows himself to be dragged into the group of Warblers.

But when Blaine grins and announces to the rest of them "All right, losers, we're _gonna_ do Baby It's Cold Outside this time," Kurt wonders if he's even prepared for what he just signed up for at all.

"_This_ is what you want me to sing with you?" he hisses.

"It's non-denominational," Blaine points out. "And your range is perfect for our arrangement. And I..." He leans in closer, in a way that makes Kurt shudder. "I really just want to sing with you, Kurt. With everyone watching. Is that so bad?"

It's _horrible_, Kurt thinks, in the most glorious, glorious way.

His part goes first, he knows, so he lets the backup vocals tune up and then kind of get into the swing of things and looks to Blaine for his cue. There's a subtle nod and a less-subtle arched eyebrow and he begins.

_"I really can't stay..."_

"But baby, it's cold outside," Blaine returns.

_"I've got to go 'way..."_

"But baby, it's cold outside – "

The whole song just sort of feels like it's swaying, and Kurt and Blaine sway in time with it, eyes locked on each other in a way that's way more intense than Kurt was anticipating. This isn't private like their moment before. Kurt is very aware that Mercedes shows up around _I'll take your hat_ and that by the time it swells into the second verse the crowd around them has more than triple what it was during Winter Wonderland.

But Kurt also becomes very aware – cemented by the utterly fuckable look that sweeps over his face at _gosh your lips look delicious_ – that Blaine isn't just enjoying this because he really wanted to sing the song.

They drag out the ending, with Kurt kind of following Blaine's lead on the melting-hot high harmony he takes and sort of twirling into him as it wraps up. The crowd applauds furiously, Mercedes most fiercely of all, and Blaine gives him the darkest most tempting look and sort of whispers in his ear, except he doesn't have to whisper because it gets lost in the noise of it all –

"There's a couple they can do without me."

"Oh damnit _yes_."

He tugs Kurt back through the thick of the Warblers and into the depths of the toy store and as soon as they find an aisle without little kids on it Blaine drags Kurt all the way to the back and shoulders him up against a shelf of board games and jams his tongue into his mouth. Kurt sighs out around it and kisses back, hands spasming in and out of fists where Blaine has them pinned at the wrists as he slides his torso full-on against Kurt's, sweater on sweater almost as hot as skin on skin at this point.

"They are, they _are_ delicious," Blaine babbles into the kiss, going back for more and more, mouth bobbing against Kurt's, doing all the work. Kurt is totally content for that to be how this works, considering his bones have basically liquefied and he's in doubt that he could do much for himself at this point. He just wants Blaine's hot lips and hotter tongue pressing slick against his own, their breaths mingling against one another in this toy shop back corner, and screw whatever stupid parents think their electric _need_ is inappropriate behavior in front of their kids, have some freaking holiday spirit.

Kurt wrenches his hands free and grips either side of Blaine's face, and Blaine's hands come to rest at the shallow curve of his waist into his hips. "My mother _will_ start to worry," he quips, "and by my mother I mean Mercedes. I'm sure she's figured out what's going on by now but her head's probably going to explode if I don't get her the four-one-one on everything soon."

"We're supposed to do another set here and then the Dalton van's coming back to take us to the other store," says Blaine. "But jesus, Kurt, I want – "

"I _want_, too," he assures him, rolling his hips hard against Blaine's in the other boy's grasp, just once (because just once is enough). "But I have to go. And so do you."

Blaine kisses him again, thick and wet and wonderful, but then pulls away entirely. "Again," he insists. "Soon."

Kurt hesitates on that for all of two seconds. "Where's the other store? I can follow in the Navigator, we can do the song again and then – "

"There's no way there'll be parking over there," says Blaine, "that's why we just had the van drop us off and it's coming back."

"I've still got my dad's handicap pass from right after his heart attack."

A slow, absolutely _sinful_ smile works its way over Blaine's face, and he curves one hand around Kurt's cheek and swipes his thumb over it, and something that cutesy and romantic coming from a guy in a Santa hat should not be that freaking _hot_.

"Just put it in your GPS, then. And I'll see you there."

He vanishes into the stuffed animals, and Kurt follows after a few minutes later, looking for Mercedes, and thinking _oh you most certainly will._

-xxx-

Kurt makes a list, when he finally gets home at the end of it all, to mark off everything he successfully managed to get over the course of his crazy Friday.

_*Dad - giftcard  
*Dad - cell phone cover  
*Carole+Dad - heart-healthy cookbook  
*Carole - phone  
*Finn - phone  
*Sam - Gleecret Santa gift  
*me - boots  
*me - boyfriend_

He stares at the last item for several long, indulgent minutes, and then turns his lights out and goes to bed with a smile.

He has nowhere to be tomorrow, and plans to sleep in until at least noon, with nothing but himself and his dreams.

-xxx-

(**AN: **The version of Winter Wonderland I have the Warblers singing is the Jason Mraz version. Do yourself a favor and look it up.)


End file.
